


Five Times Sherlock Fell Asleep in John's Arms by Accident and the One Time He Did It – Accidentally – on Purpose

by WillowGrove



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Comfort, Cuddling & Snuggling, Dreams, Fever, First Kiss, Five Plus One, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Humor, John Watson Takes Care of Sherlock Holmes, John taking care of Sherlock, Kissing, Love, M/M, Sherlock Texting, Tea, Texting, elaborate plans for more cuddling, falling asleep, wooing by cuddles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:53:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23857900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WillowGrove/pseuds/WillowGrove
Summary: Sherlock notices that John keeps cuddling him to sleep and he rather likes it. But then John stops, and Sherlock has to result to schemes to make it happen again. Who falls asleep, who wakes up in who’s arms, and – most importantly – will there be a kiss in the end?
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 44
Kudos: 397





	1. One – The Cab

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aliada](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aliada/gifts).



> This is a gift for Aliada, a dear dear friend of mine, a delightful chatting companion and a super hero of her own life. I promised this fic some years ago as a present for one of her achievements, after which she’s had many many, so many more. My fic is late but she’s just as awesome as ever so in a way it comes with perfect timing! For you, Aliada! You hoped for cuddling, especially John cuddling Sherlock, humour, tea, and text messaging. This has a little bit of everything, I hope. It probably has other bits as well. With this I'm congratulating you on all your achievements and also just simply for being the wonderful person and kind friend you are. Hugs!
> 
> Thank you for my other super dear super star friend Elphen for betaing! All mistakes are mine!

The first time it happened, Sherlock had initially thought it hadn’t happened at all.

He’d been so knackered after the overlong case that it was a small miracle he'd detained any information at all, let alone enough to deduce something worth while afterwards.

He’d not slept for days in fact, and the cab had been so warm after the cold London night. They’d been lurking in freezing street corners for what felt like eons and had only gotten lucky when the killer had mistakenly approached Sherlock with a lead pipe. It had – not surprisingly – all ended very snappily after that, with the killer on the floor, John brandishing the pipe, and sirens going off in the distance.

John had been quiet afterwards, just looking at Sherlock with large eyes and – once Lestrade had arrived – had announced that they were going home. The cab ride had been a long one, and Sherlock's eyes had drooped the moment they’d sat down and closed the doors.

He’d fallen in a deep velvety slumber dreaming of dark alleyways and daring chases – always with a warm calming presence beside him, a strong hand to pull him to safety, and a quick efficient word exchanged in the middle of a carefully balanced chaos.

At Baker Street he'd promptly woken up to the familiar movement of the car curving up to their front door. His neck had been cramped, and he'd felt stiff all over, but he'd been surrounded by a safe smell, and he’d felt warm and rested and overwhelmingly… nice. He did not much like that particular word, ‘nice’, but there was no other that would have quite suited the feeling surrounding him just then.

After just two seconds of hazy detachment, he'd understood where he was; in a back-seat of a London cab, his head heavy against John's shoulder, his torso leaning against John's warmth. He must have slumped down against John's side at some point during the ride.

He’d jerked upright in an instant and that's why he hadn’t noticed anything amiss at first. John had just looked at him carefully and said – thankfully without words, just the way John could, with just his expressive eyes – _it's all right Sherlock, you were tired._

But as they’d walked up the stairs to 221B, Sherlock had lingered in the soft feeling of the dream and the wonderful haze of waking up feeling… surrounded. As he’d recalled the sensation of John beside him – around him – the deduction had clicked in place. He’d not noticed it in the cab, because John must have pulled back the second Sherlock had moved, but now Sherlock could distinctly remember not only John’s warmth beside him, but also John’s arm draped over him and a hand on his shoulder; a thumb caressing in small circles, soothing his whole world and turning his dreams into starry nights full of delightful crimes.

John had not simply let him slump against him. John had molded his whole body into the comfortable embrace and held him close. John had sneaked an arm around him, caressed him, made him feel safe.

As they’d sat down for mugs of tea in their living room a little later, Sherlock had lifted one hand and absently kneaded his shoulder.


	2. Two – The Chamomile

The second time had happened over tea. Of course, that did not quite explain how he'd not noticed what was happening that time either, not before he was already in the middle of it. Or more accurately, when his _feet_ were in the middle of it. Well, it was all rather hard to explain, but this was how it had gone.

He’d been in the middle of a frustratingly nagging cold case. A daughter and an estranged mother, mysteriously paid bills, and a disappeared cabinet. Now that he thought about it, John had been right, it _had_ sounded a bit like a fairy tale.

Back then he’d been pacing the living room carpet threadbare, and no amount of hair pulling had seemed to help his thoughts the way it usually did. Usually it calmed him down and centered him and pulled new surprising thoughts out. That time, it had just made him more irritated.

John, who’d sat there patiently all the while, had finally huffed and puffed and then bustled to the kitchen. He'd brought back a tray with mugs and a pot that had smelled like…

“Chamomile!? Why chamomile, John?” Sherlock had demanded. John only made chamomile when he thought Sherlock was irritated. How irrational. It had irritated him further.

But John had just said, “Because.” And then he’d said, “Sit down”.

Miffed, Sherlock had risen from his chair, sat down on the sofa, and John had poured them tea. Sherlock had opened his mouth to start reviewing all the details of the case just like he usually did, because of course that was what John had been aiming for all along, but John had spoken before he’d been able to choose where to start from; from the first oddity with the flower pot that had been missing from one of the crime scene photos or from the phone call from Maria, because while the flower pot had started the investigation, the phone call had started the crime and…

“Tell me more about the cottage”, John had said.

There had been no cottage on the case, and Sherlock had been about to say so, but then, for some reason, he'd just told John more about the cottage. This was a discussion they’d started earlier, of course, the day before, when Sherlock had been looking at the file for the first time, and for some reason that cottage had come to his mind then.

It seemed John had been trying to make him take a break and not trying to help him with the case. It was a stupid tactic, but sometimes Sherlock liked to indulge John.

So he’d quickly got lost in the story, about this cottage they'd visited one summer with his family, and about a cat that he'd befriended there, and all the adventures they’d embarked upon together. For a while he'd been there, in that field with the sun warming the wheat crop that gently swayed in the wind. Running after the black cat with a pink nose.

“He couldn't have been a particularly ferocious beast if he had a pink nose, Sherlock”, John had pointed out, but Sherlock had been indignant. “Why ever not?” he'd complained, “one's nose colour does not determine how brilliant one is.”

John had only laughed and said, “True enough.”

So Sherlock had explained all about the following day and when he’d got to the part where Mycroft had wanted ice cream, John had pulled Sherlock's feet towards him and up to his lap. Sherlock had continued his story, and John had laid one hand on his ankle. The warmth from John’s palm had steadied him and made him at ease and eventually let him set his cup on the table and lean his head against the hand rest and close his eyes.

When he’d woken up, he’d still been there, not on the sofa, but at the field, with the sun and the gentle wind and the wheat, and John had sat with him there on the grass by the oak tree, the memory of his hand on his ankle still present. Sherlock had known then, that something about the picture without the flowerpot had reminded him of that place, that cottage.

As he opened his eyes to the otherwise empty living room, he’d finally known what it was.

The case had been solved in just under an hour, but the ghostly feeling of John's hand on his ankle had lingered much longer.


	3. Three – The Faulty Heating, the Disappearing Socks and the Orange… Frogs?

The third time was harder to piece together, but Sherlock was sure it had started with a text from John. If he screwed his eyes together just so, he could almost land back there, in that evening.

 _Sherlock, you ok?_ John texts him that time, and Sherlock – feeling bizarrely like his legs are on fire – reluctantly scrolls up his message history to see what prompted the overreaction this time.

He supposes, _John, the frogs in the cupboard have turned orange now, what can we deduce about their acidity?_ is a little bit weird, even for him. Funny, though, he vaguely remembers that it had seemed logical enough as he'd sent it.

 _John, did you increase the floor heating again?_ he sends back, because, really, his toes are toasting now.

 _You're ill. I'm coming home_ , John texts, and Sherlock huffs, but before he has time to send a rebuttal – he is never ill, only John sometimes suffers from hypochondria, or whatever it is they call it when you think your flatmate is ill – John has followed with another text.

_Put some socks on. And heat some water. The electric kettle, not the stove. We don't need the house burning down._

_The hous snot going to brn down_ , Sherlock sends back a little later and frowns at the letters, who all seem to be behaving badly today. _No socks, it's hott enough_ , he sends and smiles because that one is correct. He bumps his fist in the air in victory.

_You've got a fever, Sherlock, keep yourself warm._

_Don't have ay socks_ , Sherlock sends back some time later after opening several of his drawers and pulling everything out. He owns lots of pants and t-shirts, it seems, but no socks. He feels strangely mellow and it feels nice following John's orders, because even though they make no sense at all, they also make him giggle.

 _Take mine, underneath the sofa table, the gray woolen ones_ , John sends.

By some miracle, Sherlock finds them. The socks tickle something mad, but they are still soft and they smell so much like John, that Sherlock spends some time as a pretzel on the floor sniffling his own feet. He briefly wonders why he’s on the floor, but then he remembers – he descended there in search of under table socks.

 _How's the tea progressing?_ John sends to his under table sock ambush cove, and John really is funny today. What tea is he talking about?

 _Hat tee?_ Sherlock sends and smirks at the phone.

_Forget the tea. You have the socks on?_

_Yes. Smell like u. <3_, he sends, and figuring out how to find the little heart shape takes him so long that John's following text arrives before he sends his.

_My blanket is on my chair. Get under it._

_Making cofee, John, feel seepy_ , he sends. Why is it so cold here?

_You're having a fever and I’m afraid it might be rising. Make the coffee and get under the blanket. I'll be there soon._

Really, John's texts are unnecessarily long and confusing today. _Wha blankkkt?_

He is more concerned with the fact that he is shivering. Why John always fiddles with the thermostat is beyond him. It feels like the temperature's been fluctuating something crazy just today. John really should be home when he does this so he could be properly yelled at, Sherlock thinks, and something about that deduction feels off, but he shakes his head, and more than anything else, he needs a blanket right now. John has his always folded over his chair, and there it is now. He grabs the blanket and smirks. He’s a genius!

When John finally comes home, he crouches by Sherlock's side and smooths Sherlock's shoulder and sets a mug of tea close by and lifts a full bag of flu medicine on the table. "I'm here now, you lanky git. You'll be all right, your doctor will take care of you", he says.

John is so handsome as he shrugs his jacket off.

The delicious tingle in Sherlock's spine is caused partly by John's firm outside-cold hand curled around his arm and partly by those words. "My doctor…" Sherlock mumbles. The heat, it seems, is still making him drowsy, and perhaps he has a bit of a fever because the whole world seems hazy and wonderful and strange. He feels a pressure on his hip, and a wet something on his forehead, and something heavy is pulled over his body. Another blanket. He feels so deliciously warm now, and even though John's hand is gone, he still feels the firm support of it on his skin as he is drifting to sleep again.

The knowledge seeps in as an afterthought; something so simple and relevant that it almost does not bear mentioning. Yet he lingers on that feeling over and over and lets it soothe him into a soft caring sleep.

John, leaning over and pressing a kiss on his forehead.

Perhaps it was a dream after all.


	4. Four – The Train

The fourth time Sherlock had been shivering again. The case had been still going on, and they'd just had a setback in Wales, in the middle of nowhere, in a barn of all places. A barn, that had turned out not to be what they'd hoped for, or rather not what they'd feared. They’d been accordingly disappointed, and the long hike back to civilization in the rain afterwards had not helped. They'd changed into dry clothes in the small bed and breakfast they'd stayed at, but Sherlock had started shivering again as they’d waited for the London-bound train on the windy platform.

They’d been almost alone in the train car. Not so many people wanted to take the night train on a Wednesday it had seemed. The world had been dark around the train, and the lights inside the car had made gloomy reflections on the windows. John had taken the window seat, “because it would be warmer by the aisle”, he’d said. John was always insistent like that.

Sherlock hadn't much cared, he’d just rolled his eyes and shivered. It had suited his mood; cold and dark and full of recriminations for a job poorly done. The killer had still been on the loose, and they’d wasted two whole days. He’d desperately wanted to come up with a better plan, but his thoughts had kept tumbling together and winding around the same routes every time he’d tried to think of a new way out of his dilemma.

After the first stop at an empty station, John had collapsed the whole misshapen spiderweb of his thoughts by jabbing him with his elbow.

“Hey, take off your coat”, John had croaked.

Sherlock remembered having looked at John scathingly. No way had he been willing to take his coat off, he’d been cold enough as it was, thank you very much.

John hadn’t given up, though.

“No, you'll be warmer this way, I promise, look”, he’d said and shrugged his own coat off. Sherlock remembered still vividly how good John had looked doing that.

In the end he’d been too tired to argue. He knew John usually got what he wanted in situations like these. In fact, Sherlock was usually happy to follow along if it meant that John would take care of the practical things, and he could concentrate on the important stuff. Like finding the murderer. Sooner rather than later. So he’d capitulated.

John had instructed him to keep his scarf on but to take his shoes off. It had all seemed baffling, but John had been already arranging himself with confidence. He’d folded his own jacket and placed it against the dark chill of the window, turning sideways on his chair and scooting towards the window, leaning against the black of the night and lifting one sock clad foot up on the seat and against the backrest.

He’d motioned Sherlock closer.

It had taken a little bit of shuffling and arrangement, but finally they’d found a position they’d both been comfortable in. John's chest had been warm, and as John had been sitting quite tall and as Sherlock had been slumping down a bit, his head had slotted nicely into the crook of John's neck.

John had then pulled Sherlock's coat over them both and told Sherlock to fold his legs all the way inside the warmth of the cozy nest they’d formed together. It had been a tight fit but they’d made it work, Sherlock’s toes poking out under the arm rest, John’s leg pressed tight between the backrest and Sherlock’s body.

After the briefest of hesitations, John had brought his hands to embrace Sherlock under the coat, pulling him even closer. It had felt almost too much, but Sherlock had been tired. The rattle of the train had swayed them slightly, and he'd been able to feel the rumble of the rails through John's body against his back.

The warmth had seeped into him slowly but undeniably; John's body warm and solid underneath him, his own coat heavy and concealing over them. The coat had been warm despite the slight moistness it had retained from their hike earlier that day.

The details of the case had slowly dispersed to be replaced by the feel of his feet against the rough of the train upholstery, the smell of mud and sweat in the car, imported by the dozens and dozens of travelers traipsing in and out of the car every day, the sharpness of John's clavicle under his skull, and the steady rise and fall of John's chest as he’d breathed under Sherlock.

It sometimes happened when he was with John that his mind started wandering. The importance of whatever he was obsessing over slowly vanished as other, different things, flooded his mind. It had happened that time as well, when John's palm had rested against his belly, hidden there in their cocoon of warmth. It must have happened gradually, because he’d been thinking about the barn at first, and then he’d been thinking about the killer, and then, at some point, Sherlock had realized that John’s palm was smoothing small circles over his stomach, and that he’d not, in fact, been thinking about the case in some time.

He’d had to fight not to shiver then, as a new kind of warmth had spread through his belly and up his spine, and he'd felt suddenly dizzy despite his reclining position. He'd wanted to say something then, but had not known what it was.

During the ride, their positions had naturally shifted and molded through adjustments needed because of an aching arm here or a numbing leg there. At one point, one of John's hands had fallen down from Sherlock’s belly and ended against Sherlock's hip in stead. Sherlock had at first missed the smoothing circles that hand had drawn, but luckily this hand had had a caressing thumb as well, and it had commenced smoothing over his hip bone and back again in repeated soft waves.

Then, a little later, John's other hand had sneaked up and stilled against his chest, just holding him there. Sherlock had known then that John's eyes had been closed. He had no idea how he’d come to this deduction, only it had seemed an important one at the time. Perhaps because it had brought him the courage to do what he’d done next.

Underneath the concealing coat, he’d brought his own hand up to find John's. Their fingers had entwined together, and a pure white joy had burst inside Sherlock. He’d not been quite sure, but perhaps he’d hummed, or perhaps it had been John.

But in his memory, as he'd already been drifting to sleep, what had made his dreams all the sweeter, was the fact – and he’d been quite convinced of it back then – that there had in fact been two simultaneous hums.


	5. Five – The Hospital

The time at the hospital had been different, not only because Sherlock had been hurting, but also because by then he’d already figured it out. To be honest he’d not _figured it out_ figured it out. It was not like he could have announced it to the world – or even to himself out loud. The risk of being found wrong would have been much too high.

But he had known.

He’d known that John was up to something with this hugging and cuddling and making Sherlock fall asleep business. He’d known too where he wished John would ultimately take it. Luckily John had seemed to have a pretty good handle on it himself, and so Sherlock had made an executive decision to just follow along and enjoy the ride.

That was also why he’d not been entirely surprised, when, after hobbling to the hospital and arguing with the attending nurse about their urgency – John had been loud and Sherlock whiny, a combination which had not proven very effective against the hardened nurse – John had guided them to settle onto one of the worn out sofa benches in the waiting lounge. John had sat down on the right, patting the firm padding just beside him.

“Sit down, you're knackered, it was a long case. It'll probably take an age for her to find us a doctor now.”

Sherlock had been tired enough to just sigh as a reply. He’d ran the quip about John’s diplomatic skills in his head, though – no reason to let his rudeness go rusty even if he was too tired to open his mouth.

He’d felt a bit woozy as he’d sat down and had had to support himself with a hand on the hard sofa back.

“Wooo! Take it easy”, John had crooned. He’d pulled a careful arm around Sherlock, wary of not upsetting the elbow in the makeshift fling he'd devised earlier.

“We should have just gone home”, Sherlock had whined, but John had simply scooted closer and held him.

“Nope. We don't have an x-ray at home, and you need to be checked.”

“Yes, why don't we have an x-ray at home? Would be nice. I could run experiments. And you could fix me whenever this happens.”

“This”, John had intoned, “is not going to happen again, Sherlock. And I'd still take you to the hospital, even if we did have an x-ray machine. Which we won't.”

Sherlock had not agreed with any of it, but he’d felt weary and closed his eyes. Slowly, his daydreams about x-ray machines and John tending to him at home had blended into a pleasant hum of simple comforts. Sherlock had indeed been rather tired. John had felt nice to lean against. How did John always know these things?

“How do you always know?”, he’d asked then as well, but could not have answered John's baffled counter question of, “Know what?”, because an insistent hum had been just then filling his ears, the promise of sleep suddenly tasting intricately sweet.

Underneath his eyelids, there had been an another world, a world where they had been at home already, and John had been bringing him cold cases and honey on a plate. He’d not known what, exactly, was the purpose of the honey, but it had felt warm and precisely correct, just like things could feel in dreams.

He’d been swimming in a pool where the waters of these two worlds mixed; the real world and the one that had felt more and more real by every passing breath. The waters were gradually mingling and swirling in together and creating confused but pretty shapes on the surface. He’d asked the John in his dream – the one who was now wearing nothing but Sherlock's dressing gown, for some delightful reason – “So is this where you pull me close and seduce me by serial cuddling?”

The dream John had chuckled, but also frowned at the same time and tried to ease his hand off, but Sherlock had merely snuggled closer, rubbing his chin against his woolly jumper like a cat. “You smell like catnip”, he’d sighed, and then added as an afterthought, “is it really _my_ dressing gown?”

The John in his dream had put his palm against his forehead then, and Sherlock had thought it curious, because why would the dream John have suspected he was feverish? One did not usually have fevers in dreams.

It had taken a while to register, but he’d felt a refreshing coolness against his forehead then. He remembered that he’d chuckled, and that the next deduction had been as fast as lightning.

That the real John must have felt for his forehead at the same time the dream John had.

How quaint.


	6. Plus One – The Grand Scheme

So, that had been then. But this was now, and this now was turning out to be rather disappointing. It had been three weeks since the hospital and the x-ray, and nothing at all interesting had happened. No cuddling or pulling Sherlock close or even bringing him random cups of tea. Nor were there jackets arranged over anyone or any impromptu discussions about childhood.

Just nothing.

The snuggling John had vanished, and in his place was a new John. A polite, vary, and annoyingly respectful John.

Sherlock had valiantly tried falling asleep in random places and he was constantly yawning when John was making tea. But John never took the bait. Whenever Sherlock was lying around in prettily arranged sleeping poses, John mostly just coughed and shook him awake or sneaked to the kitchen to surreptitiously knock something over very loudly.

Moreover, Sherlock had asked John’s help with cases, but John had only sat down and asked rational questions. They had solved several cold cases, yes, but absolutely no cuddling had happened whatsoever.

It was all useless.

Grudgingly, Sherlock had come to the conclusion that he’d scared John away. He’d been onto John for weeks and that had been fine, but now John was onto him being onto John and that, apparently, was not fine at all, it was the opposite of fine. It was a disaster. John was awkward, and Sherlock was awkward, and that made John even more awkward, and the nasty feedback loop was up and working like a charm – or like an unlucky charm, to be more precise.

Sherlock of course regretted his feverish unthinking words in the hospital, but it was not like he could take them back. What was done was done.

The point was, he needed to do something about it now. They could not continue in this state of unease. John had started something, and Sherlock had liked it, and what had happened had changer them both. They could not go back to what they had had before, but neither did they seem able to move forward. They were at an unhappy impasse.

The bummer was that John had really done a marvelous job right up until he had messed it all up by getting scared and canceling his whole campaign. Well, Sherlock would just have to pick it up where John had left off.

He pondered it for a few days researching several scenarios and schemes. It couldn’t be so hard, could it, when even John had been able to do it? The internet was full of bright ideas. Surprising John with a Valentine’s day cake had to be discarded, though. It was four months until Valentine’s, and he suspected John might not appreciate pink hearts and sparkles on his person on a regular Tuesday. Offering John his favourite food was out as well as they ate it all the time anyway.

There was also a lot about small touches on these websites he browsed, and he wondered if John had got his idea from the same place. Sherlock put some serious thought into this; clearly John had had a lot of success with it. The problem was, though, that Sherlock had been touching John ever since they met; reaching to his pockets, manhandling him during cases, fixing his lapels. It was normal for them. The disheartening fact was that John had obviously never taken it to mean anything more.

To introduce new kind of toughing, Sherlock briefly considered picking up a hobby where they would have to be in contact. Like wrestling. Or partnered yoga. Or tandem skydiving. But talking John into it would be a pain, and the results were doubtful in any case.

When he was almost at his wits end and thought of just giving up and asking John for advice, it finally clicked: That was it! Asking John! Only, he didn’t have to ask John, he already knew what John would answer! Or at least what John’s approach would have been. Sherlock had experienced it!

He’d had the right idea from the beginning; picking up where John had left off. He would just have to do it quite literally. It would be simple like catching a burglar who had stepped in fresh paint on their way out!

Here was the plan then: He would make John tea and he would make John fall asleep and then he’d cuddle and pet John, and then, voilà, John would wake up, and they would kiss. It was inevitable. Although he was a little uncertain still as to what exactly the function of the tea was in this scenario, but, nevertheless, he’d make it work. He was a genius after all.

There was just the one problem left to solve: How to make John fall asleep?

John generally liked to sleep in his own bed. He did it most nights in fact. But snuggling John there didn’t quite seem the correct thing to do. Not for the first time at least.

Before the latest developments, John had been often dozing off here and there in their living room and during cases, but this new polite John seemed to be always awake and alert and often retreating to his own room in the evenings when they didn’t have anything urgent going on.

The obvious solution was of course acquiring a long enough case that it would tire even this new alert John out. Too bad they didn’t have any cases on at the moment. At first, Sherlock tried a few cold cases, but they were so easy, he solved them all before he even had time to tell John about them. Then he tried calling Lestrade, but Lestrade just hung up on him.

When the cases failed, Sherlock tried to get John interested in one or two of his experiments that could be carried out by lurking in rainy London street corners, but for some reason John did not seem keen to join him.

Then, when he was almost desperate, the perfect plan fell into his lap.

They were sitting drinking their morning cups of coffee. John was reading the paper and making faces at the different articles. Sherlock often amused himself by figuring out the piece of news from John’s expressions alone. The particular face John made then, made Sherlock immediately perk up. John licked his lips and grinned and his eyebrow quirked and his mouth opened and closed several times before he finally got out what he wanted to say.

“Here, Sherlock, this is something you should solve. They are writing about it for the fourth week now: Ice cream shops closing down. This is already the third one folding it seems”, he chuckled and read from the paper. “’The Icy Carousel was a neighbourhood classic’. Apparently people of Lisson Grove are in mourning now.”

John looked at him and grinned. He was obviously joking. But Sherlock had already taken notice. He was desperate, and this _could_ work. He needed to have John talk about it some more and he knew just the trick to do that. He would be contradictory. He put on a dissatisfied face.

“That’s not a case”, he huffed, “You cannot solve that. People are just buying less ice cream. It’s just bad business sense from the shops. Or random bad luck. In any case, the people of Lissom Grove should have just bought more ice cream from this roller-coaster if they loved the place so much. Serves them right. People are idiots.”

“Not a roller-coaster, a carousel”, John smiled, “But what if it isn’t just bad luck? What if there’s a gang behind it?”

John was full out smirking and winking now, but it was much more fun to take him seriously.

“An ice cream stealing gang? Dairy mafia? Really, John!”

John snapped the paper shut and grumbled something, but Sherlock was already thinking about the possibilities of the case. Inspecting all those shops and standing in their freezers for one; everyone knew cold air kept you awake. It would be perfect, it would make John alert while Sherlock surreptitiously tired him up. Oh, it would all work out perfectly.

It took him the whole day and the better part of the following night to plan it all out. Calculating distances between the shops, figuring out the average customer frequencies. Pondering on the competition. But honestly much more of the planning went into devising clever ways of keeping John awake and by his side at all times.

He was finished around 4am and he only waited for a few hours before he stomped upstairs to wake John up by banging on his door. Better to get a head start on making John tired.

The first thing they did was to take a cab to the home of the last shop owner who’d lost his ice cream parlour, the Icy Carousel. Really what a stupid name!

The whole case was stupid. It wasn’t even a case really, just a lot of running around and collecting fake evidence and talking to people and making it seem like a case so that John wouldn’t get too suspicious. Along the way, they did manage to find a reporter to do a positive story about the environmentally conscious oat ice cream shop in the morning, though. And after the lunch time rush Sherlock helped another shop owner revamp her marketing campaign. And later that night, as a corner shop was closing, they – well, mostly John – helped reattach a halfway fallen marquis.

But overall they managed nothing much until the eviction papers of the Carousel pinged into Sherlock’s phone and the case that was not a case turned out to be a sort of a case after all. Not strictly speaking a detective case, but a law case at least, and, well, Sherlock was game to do some studying. They took a cab to Chancery Lane and sneaked into the Law Society Library and spent half the night with Sherlock devouring information and John fetching him different books and the other half (after running out of the library posthaste with a guard on their heels) waking up several lawyers who owed Sherlock from this or that old case until one of them finally agreed to help them.

As the early morning sunbeams hit the Icy Carousel windows, they curved to the street in a cab, just in time to catch the building owner. He was about to go in and shut down the freezers, and so it happened that they were just in time to save the ice cream with the pretty little loophole Sherlock had found in the eviction papers. The irate building owner swore a great deal and then took a cab to find his lawyer.

“Don’t worry”, Sherlock smirked, “He’s not going to find any help from that old dodger. His lawyer is the one who messed it all up in the first place. The Carousel can stay. Or keep rotating. Whatever.”

John laughed out loud with that, “That’s just brilliant. I can already see the headlines: ‘Sherlock Holmes saves London’s finest cones’, ‘Holmes for the rescue: your ice cream is safe when Sherlock Holmes patrols the streets!’”

“Haha. And how are you going to name your own blog post then?”

“Oh, how about something like… ‘Sherlock Holmes and the ice cold deduction – with sprinkles!’”

John was still giggling as they flagged a cab home. Sherlock found that for once, he didn’t really mind. They’d been on the run for a day and a night and he was tired and cranky, and really the case was ridiculous, but it was all for John, and seeing John happy made him not care about the little bit of needling that was usually enough to drive him around the bend.

He just smiled at John over the cab roof before ducking into the car.

“221B Baker Street”, he announced, and the smile John gave him when he slid beside him on the backseat was radiating. On top of that, Sherlock was pleased to note that John looked completely worn out. In fact, he was already yawning.

***

Back at 221B, Sherlock threw himself onto their sofa and just as he’d planned it, John slumped down beside him.

“You’re insane, did you know that?” John asked and smirked, but he was not really waiting for an answer, he just leaned his head back against the sofa and closed his eyes.

“I know”, Sherlock answered, nevertheless. He was not thinking about John’s question as much as the fact that John was finally looking like he might be falling asleep soon.

Sherlock lifted his legs onto the coffee table. He might as well be comfortable while he waited for John to doze off.

John took a deep breath, and it was almost a sigh. A happy sigh, Sherlock thought and shifted a little closer on the sofa. There was a warmth radiating from John, and Sherlock was a bit chilly. All those freezers today had left memories on his skin.

John was breathing evenly now, his body looking heavy, his arms resting slack in his lap. Sherlock leaned all the way back on the couch and turned his head so that he could look at John. He wanted to monitor John and make sure he knew when John was completely asleep. Only once John was completely off, would he dare make his move. He had it all mapped out in his head. He’d scoot closer inch by inch, then snuggle his hand behind John, carefully, and then he’d cuddle John close. He would make sure John would wake up inside a warm hug, rested and happy, and then! Then Sherlock would kiss him. It would be perfect.

Just a little longer now; he’d want John to be truly asleep, he didn’t want to startle him before he was completely under. Just a little longer now.

Sherlock closed his eyes. Just for a while. Then he’d make his move.

* * *

There was a warm feeling all over him. Something safe and soft. Like the whole world was muffled. Colourful dream images were still casting lovely shadows all over his mind and he sighed. It was like all those times he’d fallen asleep in John’s arms. This was what John did for him, he’d thought back then; John allowed him to enter new worlds, explore, dream. He felt free and safe to journey far, because John was there as his anchor, a safe place to return to.

Now the images slowly blended into the feel of heaviness in his body. He was a little groggy as well. Like he was waking from a deep slumber. He was relaxed, though, surrounded by safety and softness. Something was warm against his arm, soothing small familiar circles against his skin.

He smiled. He didn’t know where he was, but it felt good nevertheless.

He opened his eyes and looked up. Blue eyes were looking down at him. Smiling blue eyes.

John.

 _Oh._ This was good, but.

“I was meant to wake you up”, he said, a little put off, but – surprisingly – still completely happy. John was smoothing one hand over his hair now. It felt nice. Like it should be.

John smiled.

“I know”, he said.

“You were hard to tire, John. I was worn out”, Sherlock tried to explain.

John smiled even wider and chuckled.

“And how long had _you_ been awake before we started on this insane cone case?”

Oh. John had a point there. He had been awake much longer than John had. Well. He’d thought he could make it. He had much more practice in staying awake for unhealthily long time periods than John had.

He huffed, but John only smiled. He liked this John. This was a smiling John.

“We were both exhausted, Sherlock. We needed the rest”, the smiling John said.

Sherlock hummed. It was comfortable: Home. Sofa. John right beside him. He didn’t care that things had not gone exactly as he’d planned.

That was a first.

After a while of just laying there, he turned his head to look at John. “What happens now?” he asked. It was a curious thing. He’d been nervous before. Incredibly nervous. But he did not feel nervous now. Not at all. Just easy.

“I don’t know”, John said, and – he was still smiling! Smirking even. “This isn’t my scheme”, he said with a lopsided grin on his face.

Oh. John knew of his grand scheme?

“How did you know I was on a scheme?” he asked, incredulous.

“Sherlock, you’ve been asking about pink sparkles and restaurants and frankly weird hobbies and who knows what for weeks now. Of course I knew you were scheming something!”

“Well, it’s not my scheme, actually. It’s yours. You started it. Only you stopped, so I did the responsible thing and picked it up. But it was hard. You were being a really stubborn participant.”

“I’m sorry I was stubborn. I guess… I was a bit angry. Or afraid.”

“But you’re not angry now?”

“No”, John smiled again.

“Oh”, Sherlock breathed, that was good to know. “Good”, he said, a little breathless.

And then, frowning, he added, “Why would you be afraid?”

“I don’t know”, John said, brushing a hand over his face, “I thought. You figured it out… I thought you might laugh at me. At the whole thing.”

“I didn’t. I wouldn’t.”

“I know now.”

“So”, Sherlock said. This was getting a little too convoluted and a little too far from the main point for his liking. He needed to get the conversation back to the right tracks.

“So who’s scheme are we on now?” he asked.

“Why, yours. Why does it matter?” John’s brow furrowed.

“Well. First you started it. Then I picked it up. But now you’ve messed up my plan and taken over again.”

“And?” John asked, lifting his eyebrows, smiling like Sherlock was speaking nonsense again and like John didn’t really mind that much.

“Well. Who’s gonna do the kissing?” Sherlock frowned.

“Oh”, John said, pulled his eyebrows together briefly and then smiled again. “Does it matter?” he asked.

“Of course it matters! If neither of us knows who should be doing it, then neither of us is doing it and that’s…”

But Sherlock’s tirade was cut short by John’s lips. They were warm and wet and light against his own. And then they were a whole lot more, and Sherlock pulled John by his neck, and John made a surprised sound in his throat, but scooted closer willingly and then. Then he threaded his hands into Sherlock’s hair, and Sherlock was in heaven.

Only after a long while did they pull away from each other, and both of them were panting. John was still a smiling John, though. A dopey smiling John. Sherlock liked that John too. A lot.

“So”, he said, “A successful scheme.”

“A successful scheme”, John agreed and leaned in for another kiss.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Five Times Sherlock Fell Asleep in John's Arms by Accident and the One Time He Did It – Accidentally – on Purpose](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24698653) by [Podfixx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Podfixx/pseuds/Podfixx)




End file.
